guitar amps 400 ~ 600

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natrix

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for a couple of years now ive been sitting on a little 15 watt ibanez practice amp... in playing with other people, and especially with a drummer its become obvious that an upgrade mght be in order and so now im looking around a bit... my price range is roughly four to six hundred, although i might be willing to go a bit higher than that... i took a trip to a music store today and looked mainly at the fender amps... they were willing to give me a stage 100 dsp for about 400... im guess im wondering if fender is really even a smart way to go... im probably not even looking for something that will last forever.. id just like something with some volume and versatility... any advice you could give would be more than welcome.. thanks
 
If you're looking at fenders, I'm guessing that you are looking for a bluesy type amp?

Another suggestion to check out would be the Carvin Belair and the Nomad. Both are in your price range. The Belair is a 2x12 50W EL84 Combo, and the Nomad is it's little brother, with only 1x12.

http://www.carvin.com/products/single.php?ItemNumber=BELAIR&CID=GA

http://www.carvin.com/products/single.php?ItemNumber=NOMAD&CID=GA

I also dig my buddies Fender Hot Rod Deville 2x12.

All of these amps have great clean channels and respond well to the use of over drive type pedals.

The soak channel on the Belair is a lot different than the Fenders lead channels. I'm not a big fan of Fenders overdriven sound.....the belairs overdrive is more fuzzy if you will, and there's a lot more of it.

Of course, you can do a bunch of mods to these amps as well which will but them in a whole other catagory. :)

Rick
 
I don't know what you're playing mainly but I would reccommend looking around for an older Mesa Boogie (early 1990s). They're pretty versitile by having a nice fenderish clean as well as a nice crunch. I've got a .50+ Caliper that I bought a couple of years for around $400 thats a great amp.



Ryan
 
used Peavey 5150 if you're looking for good distortion

also, look into Laneys... they rock.
 
To make it easier on us, tell us what kind of sound you're looking for.

Heavy distortion? Nice clean with reverb? Crunchy?

any information will help
 
i guess im not really looking to play any metal sort of stuff... but thats not to say i wouldnt like some decent fuzz..
 
I just got a Fender Blues Deluxe, one of the 90's tube amps. (I posted something about it here a few days ago). Luckily mine was a gift/eternal loan--the tone is sweet, and it is loud as hell. When i was checking out what i had, ebay and other places seemed to sell used ones for about your price range. The tube amps require a bit more care and attention though.

The clean tone is very warm and the overdrive is just scary and it has a spring reverb. For a 40 watt amp, it is really loud though, and i am still trying to figure out how to fit this into living in an apartment.

Similiar options in the same vien are the Blue Jr (search for this, a popular small tube amp that has a lot of press, espeicailly with mods that are available aparently), which i think is 15 watts. If you look at the 3-4 smallish tube amps in this category, you might find somehting that would fit

Daav
 
I wouldn't suggest any of these tube amps for metal, but since you said that you won't be playing metal I will sugest them. Like I said earlier I have a peavey classic 30 and I like it. It does't work well for metal, but like you wanted it can get a nice distortion sound. It also has great cleans. I tried similar fender amps, but I liked the peavey more. I would suggest checking it out.
 
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with OD/distortion pedals. The internal overdrive on the amp is no good. The clean on this amp is very good and it likes most pedals. Do not get the Stage 100 DSP. At least with with Hot Rod Deluxe you can later swap tubes and the stock speaker and end up with a good amp. The amp is loud and will work with the loudest drummer. You gotta get some pedals though.
 
SBax said:
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with OD/distortion pedals. The internal overdrive on the amp is no good. The clean on this amp is very good and it likes most pedals. Do not get the Stage 100 DSP. At least with with Hot Rod Deluxe you can later swap tubes and the stock speaker and end up with a good amp. The amp is loud and will work with the loudest drummer. You gotta get some pedals though.
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yeah don't go for the solid state amps...
 
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